just to be clear, without using a Tor proxy or similar, ecash is less private than bitcoin
also, for the #monero jerkoffs out there, monero nodes as a whole are in the same exact game theory position as an ecash mint, with enough of them in collusion you can unmask the ins and outs, and especially by timing
Clearnet Monero nodes have at least Dandelion++
But you are right. It's best to run over Tor or even better i2p.
in that case what use is monero versus ecash or lightning or even bitcoin???
I don't understand the question.
Amounts encrypted. Sender obfuscated. Receiver encrypted. Clearnet node obfuscated.
Sender encryption will come with FCMP.
And you can use various anonymity networks on top of Dandelion.
the idea that a large number of monero, and tor relay nodes are not long ago being run by spooks is absurd, considering the events that happened involving the FBI's "investigation" of silk road
that attack was viable then for bitcoin, and now is not
but it's perfectly viable on monero right now
so, metadata attacks on monero are definitely in play, and you are an idiot if you don't realise this, or that those who are saying it's better than bitcoin
bitcoin has over 20000 nodes now, and i run one, that's one less node i know for sure is not funded by the CIA or NSA
are you running a #monero node? if not, why not? it's not as expensive hardware requirement
Do you understand how Monero works?
Even if your claim was true those nodes would never know receivers or amounts (because of stealth adds and ringCT). Malicious nodes wouldn't even necessarily know where the transaction originated from because of Dandelion.
The most they could know is you sent a Monero transaction. Big whoop. Compare that to Bitcoin defaults and Lightning (especially the most popular ways Lightning is used - with custodians or LSPs - so almost zero privacy from third parties)
Of course I run my own node. And so do many others I know for the simple fact that you can connect all your devices to it and gain even better privacy than connecting to a public RPC node.
It might be news to you that there are more/about the same number of reachable nodes in Monero than in BTC.
Like with Tor it's a good adversarial assumption that more than 50%of nodes are compromised.
Uh maybe because Monero retains one of, if not the most, important aspect of Bitcoin...: The underlying asset itself is self-custodial. Holding ecash is an IOU for the asset.
You don't have to sacrifice self-custody for privacy with Monero.
I don't hate ecash either. They all have their own pros and cons.
